


First

by missingparentheses



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:39:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12233019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingparentheses/pseuds/missingparentheses
Summary: It’s Link’s 40th birthday, and it’s Rhett’s job to make it memorable.





	First

**Author's Note:**

> I'm bringing some Sprite to the potluck! Can't wait to see you all there!
> 
> Thanks to [FamousWolf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FamousWolf/pseuds/FamousWolf) for her expert read-through. Also thanks for all the other things. You're so much more than just an expert read-through. :)

_June 1st, 2018_

 

It had been annoying enough when Rhett texted him and said he couldn’t carpool today. Today, of all days, Link thought he could expect a little special treatment rather than an extra measure of hassle. But he understood; things come up. He knew Rhett didn’t forget, he just had a life outside of Link.

But it was too quiet in the office, and Link found that even more annoying. He liked quiet at home, but at work there was supposed to be the ever-present buzz of hard work and the occasional money-making shenanigan. Today there was nothing, and while he didn’t remember what exactly was the situation in the parking lot when he arrived, he felt like he would have noticed if it were empty.

Upon arriving in their office and finding it as abandoned as the rest of Mythical Entertainment, Link dropped his bag onto his desk chair and unzipped it, pulling out his laptop. He turned to set it in its place on the desk and met resistance, and when he lifted it, he noticed what he’d missed before: a soda can. Sprite, to be exact. He rolled his eyes and picked it up, preparing to crack open the lid until he felt something unusual on the back. He rotated the can to discover a post-it note.

_First things first, buddyroll! Wake up!_

Link stared at the note, then set the can down. It was cryptic, but he knew Rhett. And Rhett knew him; he knew what came first. He headed straight for the kitchen and found another can of Sprite perched precariously on top of the Keurig.

_You can do it……_

He studied the words for a moment, scratching at his freshly-shaven chin until the phrase finished itself in his mind. Groaning, Link set the second can on the counter and started to work making his coffee. He was stalling—and anyway, he would need the caffeine, his own particular favorite variety of liquid courage.

With his coffee mug in hand, he left the kitchen and moved toward the public loft, climbing the stairs without hurry. His pace slowed further as he neared the top, but he pressed on. His worst fear had just entered his mind before he discovered it wasn’t true: the next can was not, in fact, inside of Craig’s cage. It sat in front of the glass, and the Serpent King felt his growing resentment for Rhett and their entire staff abate slightly.

_You’ll deserve an award after you find them all._

His next worse fear entered his mind then: were there actually going to be forty freaking cans on this wild goose chase? Was that their game? Ten minutes had already passed since he arrived, and he had only found three. At this rate he would be scouring the office alone all day—not exactly the way he wanted to spend his birthday. But his fears were once again soothed when, arranged up and down the shelves containing their Streamys and other trophies, were five more cans.

There were Sprites everywhere, and he wondered why he didn’t notice them as he entered the office. One at each of their spots on the GMM desk. Three in Stevie’s office, and eight scattered at the desks of several other crew members in the bullpen. There was a whole unopened 12-pack shoved behind the reception desk, and he rolled his eyes. Clearly they were getting tired of the game by this point. He knew the feeling.

Five cans later, Link found himself standing in a storage room looking at a green card table with a hole drilled in the top. After lifting off the can that sat there, he ran his palm across the dusty surface. He was younger then; they both were. Not just in age, but in life, in heart and mind and body. He could feel the years, and he was grateful for them. He loved the old them, but he was grateful they weren’t still wedged behind this old table, speaking to that sparse but loyal crowd. Link was glad they were here now, with this team and this empire and the dreams still ahead that felt more attainable than ever before. Far more than they did when they sat here all those years ago.

_Make my old memories come alive._

Link smiled, the melody behind the familiar lyrics coming to him immediately. Taking the can with him, he hummed the old, twangy tune as he reentered their shared office and walked straight to the wall on the right of the door. He looked up and down the collage of Merle’s records in search of the Sprite he knew was there somewhere.

After a long minute of searching the shelves that lined the wall, his growing frustration was punctuated by a crack and a fizz from behind him. Link spun around, startled by the interruption in the quiet he had been sitting in for so long.

Rhett sat on the couch, one long leg crossed over the other as he tipped back the final Sprite and took a long swig.

“That’s mine,” Link told him.

“You didn’t get enough? I only want one.”

“Where is everybody?”

Rhett quirked an eyebrow and took another sip. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Link rolled his eyes and chuckled, then he flopped down beside Rhett and cracked open the previous can still clutched in his hand. “So, what’s the plan? Are they all going to jump out next time I go out to the bullpen? Or are they on the patio?” His eyes widened, excitement growing. “Are we _going_ somewhere? Are they decorating a private room at a restaurant or something?”

“It’s your day. Is that what you’d like them to be doing?”

Link squinted at him. “That’s...wait. If I tell you I don’t want that, but they’re already doing it, then what?”

Rhett chuckled and tipped back the soda again. Then he rested it on his knee and turned toward his friend.

“What do you want for your birthday, Link? This is a big one, you know.”

Link sighed. “Yes, I noticed that.”

“How’s it feel to be old like me?”

Link studied the can in his hands, turning it slowly. He picked at the final note stuck to its side. “Why do numbers feel so important?”

Rhett shrugged. “They’re just a tool. Birthdays don’t mean anything. They’re just an arbitrary measurement of something that—”

“—Rhett,” Link interrupted, “my birthday wish is for you to shut up.”

Rhett took another drink to hide his grin, his eyebrows raised in mock offense. Then he stood and held out his hand in invitation. “C’mon, birthday boy. Your chariot awaits.”

***

Link chewed his fingernails as he watched Burbank slowly diminish from the landscape. He kept anticipating their destination, guessing at his favorite restaurants and hangouts, but every time he thought he’d figured it out, Rhett passed it by or took a turn in the opposite direction.

“Where are they, man?”

Rhett laughed. “You’re so concerned!”

“I don’t like not knowing.”

Rhett reached across the console and put his hand on Link’s knee. “Relax. Enjoy your day.”

“How can I enjoy it when it’s been non-stop mystery since I first got your text about having to drive myself?”

Rhett smirked and squeezed the knee beneath his palm. “Close your eyes, brother.”

“Why?”

“Trust me. Close your eyes.”

Link sighed and obeyed. Rhett traced small circles into the inside of Link’s knee with his fingers, and he stole glances at the man until he was convinced he was really starting to relax, at least a little.

“Take a deep breath... Then let it out… How do you feel?”

“Distracted. There’s a hand on my knee. It’s distracting.”

“Bad distracting?”

“Jury’s still out.”

Rhett chuckled and removed his hand, only to let it land lightly on the back of Link’s neck instead. He used his thumb and forefinger to rub slowly into the divots beneath his occipital bone and down the taut muscles that ran the length of his long neck. A small groan escaped Link’s throat and his head began to loll as the muscles released their grip.

“On your tenth birthday, I remember feeling possessive of you. It was so cool to turn ten, and even though I had turned ten first, it was your day to be cool. I remember wanting to make sure all the kids at your birthday party knew their place. I was the birthday boy’s best friend. It was very mature of me.”

Link chuckled. “Well, how do you think I felt when _you_ turned ten? You got there first, so you were practically a superstar!”

“We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you.”

Link grinned, all teeth. “Yes, sir.”

Rhett cleared his throat and continued. “I wanted to do something to make the day memorable, probably for selfish reasons: I wanted you to look back on your tenth birthday and think of me.”

Link laughed out loud. “You started the cake fight!”

“Your mom was so mad.”

He shrugged. “She got over it. She loves you.”

Rhett nodded and chuckled again at the memory, then moved on to the next. “When you turned twenty, I was so happy for you. It had felt so good to leave the teenage years behind. I didn’t feel like people took us seriously when we were nineteen, and somehow twenty felt like a new era. Like we were both real-live grown-ups now.”

“We sure fooled them.”

Rhett laughed. “I doubt it. Just ourselves.” He spanned open his hand and ran his fingertips up into the back of Link’s hair, applying just the right amount of circular, stroking pressure against his scalp and causing Link to let the weight of his head fall back into his grasp. “I took you camping, just the two of us. I think it was the first time we went alone, at least somewhere further than our neighborhood. We drove half a day to get there, and it just rained.”

“It was so hot out, though. I didn’t even mind the rain.”

“Until our tent leaked.”

Link chuckled. “That’s true. We had to huddle into one side of it to keep away from the wet side.”

“I didn’t mind that part of it.”

Link grinned. “Me neither.”

“Then when you turned thirty, I started noticing things I hadn’t noticed in all our years together. I noticed that when you smiled at me, there was this tightness in my chest that I couldn’t decide if I liked or not. And when you touched me, there were these frissons of sensation that just lingered in the spot.”

“Like an electric dove?” Link asked with a grin from behind his eyelids.

Rhett chuckled. “Not unlike an electric dove, yes. And that’s when I decided to stop fighting myself.”

“You kissed me.”

Rhett nodded, then he remembered Link’s eyes were still closed. “Yup. I did.”

“And I kissed you back.”

“Sure did.” Rhett pulled his hand from Link’s hair and back into his lap, and Link’s eyebrows creased.

“Is my birthday massage done?”

“It’s uh…” Rhett chuckled nervously. “Finish in a bit, maybe?”

“Why?”

Rhett laughed again and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What? What is it?”

“I’m just, uh...developing a situation.”

Link’s eyes popped open and dropped to Rhett’s jeans. He grinned widely when he saw the situation for himself.

“Rhett McLaughlin, you scamp.” He reached over, but Rhett swatted his hand away.

“I didn’t tell you to open your eyes,” Rhett laughed.

Link smiled smugly and closed his eyes again, folding his hands in his lap. “So, what happened when I turned forty?”

“Well, on the morning you turned forty, I woke up a bit tired because I’d gone back to the office the night before and spent two hours deciding where to hide cans of Sprite and what clues to put on them, and I had to wake up extra early to get other things in order.”

“Such as?”

“Hush. So after I finished getting said things in order, I came back to the office and hid in our loft until after I heard you leave with the first clue. I hoped you would stay on the trail and not come back to the office until the last clue led you there. Which you did, so that worked out.”

“Then you stole my last soda.”

“Which you object to purely out of principle.”

“Exactly.”

“Then I enigmatically led you to my car and began driving you out to the wilderness.”

“Is that where we’re going? The wilderness?”

Rhett chuckled but said nothing. After another turn, Link could feel the road roughening beneath the car and he guessed they had to be getting close. He stayed silent, his head busy whirring through the possibilities of what he could expect. Why would Rhett plan a party out in the wilderness?

A crunch of gravel accompanied the gentle stop of Rhett’s car, but despite hearing the ignition switch off, Link kept his eyes closed until instructed otherwise. He heard Rhett’s door open and felt the shift of the car as his weight left the driver’s seat. Moments after the door slammed shut again, he heard and felt his own door open. Rhett’s hand slipped into his and led him wordlessly to climb out.

Link allowed himself to be led across a gravelly yet level terrain and up three wooden-sounding steps. He stood patiently while Rhett fiddled with a key in the lock, and when the door swung open and he was led over the threshold, he felt the shift in the air. It was thick but not unpleasant, rich with the scents of cedar and smoke.

“Open your eyes.”

Link braced himself for the shout of a crowd, but he opened his eyes to a small, quiet living room. There was a dark fireplace, a leather couch flanked by two matching armchairs, and a small kitchen just adjacent. He blinked, then looked up at his friend.

“Where are we?”

“It’s just for the weekend. A little get-away. You work too hard.”

“So do you.”

“That’s why I’m staying too.”

“What? I don’t get to stay here by myself?” Link said, unable to keep the teasing grin from his face. Rhett growled and wrapped his arms around Link’s waist, swinging him around as he stepped to the center of the living room and crashing him roughly to the couch. Link gasped out a laugh as the air was shocked from his lungs in the impact. Rhett was everywhere at once, a flurry of tickling, wrestling, and kissing as Link fought for dominance.

“Now,” Rhett grunted through the effort of keeping Link pinned, “what makes you think you’re gonna fight me off this time? I’ve been keeping you down since we were six.”

“I’ve always been younger than you, old man,” Link breathed as he shoved at Rhett’s shoulder closest to the back of the couch, knocking him off balance and rolling him off the edge. They crashed to the rug with Link on top, straddling Rhett’s hips and pressing down on his upper arms. “Just ‘cause your birthdays come first don’t mean _you_ always gotta come first.”

In the space of a breath, Rhett tangled his long legs between Link’s and twisted, shifting his hip at just the right moment and flipping them again. Link whined beneath him until Rhett covered his mouth with his own.

“No need to worry about that,” he whispered against Link’s lips. “I’m gonna see to it that you come first.” He reached down between their bodies and cupped his hand between Link’s legs, eliciting a groan from the man beneath him. “The question is…” Rhett worked his fingers into the flap at Link’s fly, gripped the zipper pull, and slowly began to drag it down, “...how to accomplish this?”

Link bit playfully at Rhett’s lower lip, sucking it into his mouth. He squirmed with impatience as Rhett took his time opening the button on his jeans with one hand, then slid that hand between his pants and underwear and caressed him over the fabric. Link thrust up against him, desperate for more pressure, but Rhett chuckled and removed his hand. He lifted himself to a stand, then he stood looking down at Link with his fists on his hips and a smirk on his face. His eyes flicked down to Link’s swollen crotch, pants opened wide.

“You’re in a state, Mr. Neal.”

“Who put me there?”

“I’m only doing my duty. It’s not every day a man reaches an important milestone. As your best friend, it’s my job to make it memorable.”

“You’ve done that already.”

“So you’re good? Had enough? Shall I go?”

Link stuck out his bottom lip and reached up toward him with grabby hands, and Rhett relented. He lowered himself to his knees, straddling Link’s legs and hooking his fingers into the waistband of his underwear. He slid his fingers back and forth beneath the band, not reaching further in nor pulling the fabric lower. Link’s head rolled back as he groaned.

“You tryin’ to kill me, brother?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. The gravestone would be so confusing.” Rhett bent down and nosed beneath the hem of Link’s t-shirt. He pressed soft kisses to his belly, drifting down and tugging at the waistband again just a bit, just enough to lay light presses of his lips along the strip of skin beneath. Link gripped Rhett’s hair and let out a dramatic whine. Rhett chuckled against his skin. “Is there something you’d like? You a got birthday wish list for me?”

“I want you to fuck me senseless. Then I want peanut butter ice cream cake and a nap.”

“What if I fuck you senseless, take you to your birthday party, bring some of the peanut butter ice cream cake back here after, then let you eat it off me before your nap?”

“Deal.”

Rhett slipped his hands beneath Link’s shirt and dragged it up, coaxing Link’s arms up over his head so he could pull it free. Then he returned to the waistband he’d been teasing at and gripped it, yanking both garments down and off his feet with his socks and shoes. He stood again and began to unbutton his own shirt while Link watched, arms crossed beneath his head to take in the show. Rhett swayed his hips as he undressed, and Link jumped in with the mouth trumpet, weaving a provocative tune.

When Rhett was naked, he crouched down again at Link’s feet and kissed each one. His eyes ran up the length of Link’s body and held his gaze as he began his ascent, mouthing a slow line up each leg. He dropped a few kisses over his groin but refused to linger, despite Link’s gasps as he landed on his most sensitive places. He continued on, letting his tongue dance across sharp hipbones and the ticklish sides of his narrow waist, lips painting over ribs and sternum, mouth rounding the curves of his pecs and the jutting edge of each collarbone. Rhett kissed up the side of Link’s throat and over his jaw before covering his mouth with his own.

The long journey up Link’s body had made them both ravenous and eager, and they consumed each other. Hands groped at each other’s skin, pulling the other closer, as if they wanted to climb inside and disappear. Link barely registered the quiet click of a lid being uncapped, but moments later he felt the cool, gentle press of fingertips against his opening, and his body yielded to the familiar touch. Rhett mouthed at his jaw and throat as he stretched Link’s usually tight body, a body he alone knew how to open. He retracted his fingers just long enough to prepare himself, and then Link felt his lover enter him slowly.

He sighed, the last of his tension leaving him. Link lived in a state of holding back, holding in, holding on. Being with Rhett gave him permission to let go. He closed his eyes beneath the sensations of his partner’s body: the warm mouth on his throat, the soft beard that tickled around it, one large hand in Link’s hair while the other arm hooked beneath his leg as he pressed his body into him in a gentle, relentless rhythm. Link’s hands roamed for purchase as the sweet tension grew, and they landed finally in Rhett’s dirty blond waves. Rhett’s breathing was erratic in his ear, his grunts of effort turning into moans of pleasure.

“You gonna come, brother?” Link whispered.

“You first, baby.”

Link wanted to tease him, to hold himself off and prove Rhett couldn’t wait forever. But he felt that familiar tension growing, spreading out from his groin like tendrils of light in his veins, and he surrendered again. He let Rhett guide him over the edge. His voice stretched loud and long as his muscles contracted, the light pulsing through him in a white heat. Just as he reached its end, Rhett’s body began to convulse, teeth pressed hard to the skin of Link’s neck as he groaned against him. He gasped Link’s name as the aftershocks jolted through him before subsiding completely.

Rhett withdrew and rolled to Link’s side as they caught their breath. They lay quiet, enjoying the warmth of each other’s bodies as the sweat and seed cooled on their skin. Finally, Link pierced the silence.

“Shower before party?”

“Definitely, yes.”

“Thank you, Rhett.”

Rhett pressed up on his elbow and kissed Link’s mouth. “Thanks for letting me be the first to make your birthdays memorable.”

“I can’t wait to see what you’ll think up for fifty!”


End file.
